Jack hadn't thought of that. Jeez.
He said, "And since we no longer believe in personal responsibility in this country, the lawyers will have a field day."
Levy shook his head. "We're talking genetics here, not—"
"It always comes down to personal responsibility," Jack said. "Like you said, the oDNA triggers violent impulses. But there's one more step before the violence: You still have to decide whether or not to act on the impulse. And even if you're drunk or coked up at the time, you're responsible for deciding to drink or snort. So even though you have an impulse to drop a cinder block off an overpass, you don't cross the line until you release it."
Levy gave him a funny look. "Cinder block…?"
"Forget it." Jack had a flash of a gray mass crashing through a windshield, smashing into… "Just an example that came to mind."
"All that aside, the government wants to be ready to offer a remedy. That's why the urgency to find a way to suppress the trigger. But there's a more practical use. We'll be able to formulate this into injections that will last three months. A condition of parole for oDNA positives will be the therapy. Imagine the reduction in recidivism."
Jack stared at Levy. Something in his voice didn't ring true…
"Is that the real reason?"
"Of course. What other reason could there be?"
Yeah. Definitely lying. But Jack figured it would be a waste of time to ask. Besides, he had a much more pressing question.
"Why are you telling me all this?"
Levy blinked. "Why… because we agreed to trade information: I'd tell you about oDNA and you'd tell me where you heard of it."
Jack didn't buy that. Levy had told him way too much. Could be he'd got carried away with his story, but that didn't wash. He hadn't prodded Jack once for his source on oDNA.
And then he knew.
"You want Bolton back in Creighton, don't you. And you want me to put him there."
Levy looked flustered. "I want nothing of the sort. I told you, this clinical trial is of momentous importance. Nothing must jeopardize it."
"Yeah, but you think it should be tried first on someone less volatile. You've got a wife and a daughter. Bolton knows you, knows where you live, and you know he's a Tate-LaBianca waiting to happen. Admit it: Bolton on the outside scares the crap out of you."
"1 admit to nothing of the sort. As I told you—"
Jack waved him off. "Save it. You're looking for a patsy. You're hoping I'll do something to tip off the cops that Bolton's out—like maybe getting myself offed by him—and that'll solve your problem and leave your hands clean. Or at least looking clean."
Levy stared out through the windshield and said nothing.
"Okay," Jack said. "Let's do it."
Levy turned to him, looking puzzled. "Do what?"
"Out Jerry Bethlehem as Jeremy Bolton. But we do it so that neither of us is downwind when the shit hits the fan."
"How?"
Jack thought about that. Dawn was too gaga to be useful, and he couldn't use Christy to drop the dime because the agency overseeing all this would assume the source of the info was the guy she'd hired. Jack didn't want to be on their hit list.
He needed someone with no connection to him or Levy. The only other person Bolton would know on the outside was Hank Thompson.
Now there's a thought.
High-profile guy… low-profile guy… put them together…
And hadn't Thompson said the Dormentalists and Scientologists were after him because so many of their members were becoming Kickers? What if they had him under surveillance? And what if Thompson and Bolton were meeting on the outside? Maybe the rivals would want to know who he was meeting with. And when they investigated Bethlehem they'd find… Jeremy Bolton.
"Get me all you know about Hank Thompson."
Levy shook his head. "That's privileged—"
"You want this fixed or not?"
Levy hesitated, then shrugged. "I'll dig out whatever I've got."
"Do it tonight. I'll be doing a little digging myself."
"Where?"
"I'll let you know if I find anything."
Levy hesitated, then said, "There's something you should know about Jeremy Bolton."
"I'm sure there's plenty I should know about Jeremy Bolton. What've you got?"
"Don't underestimate him. He comes on as a laid-back, shit-kicking good ol' boy, but he tests high on all the intelligence scales, and he's done a lot of reading in the past twenty years. His major shortcoming is his impulsiveness. If you can keep him off balance, he'll act before he thinks. But give him time to think…"
"So I'm dealing with a smart but explosive sociopath." Levy nodded. "With a lot of native cunning. Watch out." Jack had every intention of doing just that. He'd handle Bolton from a distance.
"Thanks for the heads up. Now, how about driving me back to my car?" Conditions permitting, Jack would be paying a visit to the Jerry Bethlehem crib tonight.
7
As he hit route 9, Jack fingered the bribe money in his pocket. He'd use it to discount the fee he was charging Christy. Checking his messages he found a frantic call from her telling him that her Dawnie had moved out and that Jack had to find something on Bethlehem now-now-now! Call her please-please-please!
So he called and ground his teeth as she told her tearful tale of doing everything he'd advised her not to, then compounding it by trying to buy off Bolton—and failing.
That took Jack by surprise. A guy like Bolton who'd been locked up all of his adult life had never seen anything like that kind of money.
Or had he? He did live awfully well…
The upshot of all this was that Dawn hadn't come home last night. But worse, when Christy had gone food shopping today she'd returned to find a lot of Dawn's things missing. She'd sneaked in and moved out.
Each sob was a blade of guilt. He could end Christy's pain with a single phone call, but that could mean the start of endless trouble for himself. He didn't see Bolton as a threat to Dawn—at least not yet.
He calmed Christy by telling her his plan to get close to Bethlehem and get to know him. Maybe he'd let something slip.
"I really screwed up, didn't I," she said.
Jack wanted to chew her out for not taking his advice but couldn't see how that would help matters. He wasn't about to disagree with her, however.
"Yeah, you did. You made accusations you couldn't back up."
Her voice rose in pitch. "My daughter's shacked up with a murderer!"
"You cant say that. He has an alibi." A shaky one, but an alibi nonetheless.
"1 can't stand this! I don't know how much—!"
"Easy, easy," he said, using a soothing tone.
Too much of that kind of talk might trigger some oDNA-type behavior in Bolton.
A mutant trigger gene… oDNA… Jack shook his head. He couldn't believe he was thinking like this.
He said, "As I said, we don't know that he did it. Private eyes make enemies. I'm working on a number of angles, but they're going to take a little time."
"I don't have time."
"You may have more time than you think. He didn't take the money, and that wasn't chump change. To me that says Dawn means more to him than just a young girl he can…" He hunted for the right word.
Christy saved him the trouble. "Go ahead, you can say it: screw"